Adult Entertainment’ in the UK
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This item was submitted to Loughborough’s Institutional Repository (https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/) by the author and is made available under the following Creative Commons Licence conditions. For the full text of this licence, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ Encouraging sexual exploitation? Regulating striptease and ‘adult entertainment’ in the UK Phil Hubbard, Professor of Urban Social Geography, Loughborough University E-mail: [email protected] Biographical detail: Phil Hubbard is Professor of Urban Social Geography at Loughborough University. He is author or editor of nine books, including Sex and the city: geographies of prostitution in the urban West (1999), The Sage Companion to the City (2008) and Key Texts in Human Geography (2008). 1 Encouraging sexual exploitation? Regulating striptease and ‘adult entertainment’ in the UK Abstract Over the last decade, dedicated adult entertainment venues offering forms of striptease have proliferated in the UK. In many locales these venues attract considerable opposition, with campaigners alleging nuisances ranging from noise and drunkenness through to harassment of local residents. Local authorities consider such complaints when they decide whether or not to grant licenses for such venues, but under current licensing laws, are not able to consider objections made on grounds of morality or taste. Focusing on the ongoing opposition to proposed adult entertainment venues in the UK, this paper explores the case made for the reform of licensing laws as they pertain to nude dance venues. In doing so, it notes the lack of empirical evidence suggesting such venues deserve to be treated differently from other spaces of public entertainment, and argues that the impending reform of licensing law is underpinned by possibly flawed assumptions about the gendered and sexed nature of adult entertainment. The paper accordingly emphasizes the ability of the naked body to excite both desire and disgust, and questions the radical feminist argument that sex work is always exploitative. Keywords striptease, adult entertainment, licensing, sexuality, gender 2 Encouraging sexual exploitation? Regulating striptease and ‘adult entertainment’ in the UK Introduction Despite claims by naturists that to be undressed is to be ‘naked as nature intended’ (Bell and Holliday, 2000), nudity in public view continues to court controversy, and is ever-present in media debates concerning sexuality, morality and civility (Daley, 2005; Winship, 2002). Ideas that nudity is pure, natural and healthy hence collide with ideas it is inappropriately sexualized, obscene and anti-social: as Cover (2002, 55) notes, ‘in the history of Western culture, nakedness has been inseparable from sex and sexuality, and has hence been located adjacent to the indecent, the obscene and the immoral’. Consequently, the commercialization of nakedness has always sparked controversy. This is particularly so for ‘adult entertainment’ – a nebulous term that collectively describes striptease, exotic dance, lap dancing, private dancing, pole dancing, burlesque and other performances designed to sexually gratify, titillate and entertain (Bradley, 2008; West and Orr, 2007). Such forms of entertainment have had a problematic history, often facing vehement opposition from religious and morality groups concerned that the presentation of the naked or undressed body as erotically-charged might corrupt or deprave the viewer. In the face of such opposition, the state and law has often stepped in to censor or otherwise regulate such 3 performances in the interests of maintaining social order (Assael, 2004; Tilburg, 2007). Currently, debates about the visibility of, and access to, such entertainment are taking new directions, not least because sex businesses are becoming increasingly integral to the leisure economy of Western cities as the sex industry becomes more corporate and mainstream (Papayanis, 2000; Bernstein, 2007). In some cities, adult entertainment venues are actually encouraged by local politicians keen to promote a vibrant nighttime economy (Sanchez, 2004), with corporate businessmen perceived to be significant consumers of sexually-oriented entertainment (Hubbard et al, 2008). Yet context remains everything, with such venues still exciting opposition in many quarters, and local regulators continuing to subject venues to close scrutiny in the interests of public order. Opponents allege such venues present ‘sleazy’ entertainment that attracts criminality and vice; owners argue for the rights of consenting adults to consume sexual performances while dancers stress that they have a right to earn a living just like everyone else (Hanna, 2005). In this paper, I hence answer Frank’s (2005) call for research on strip clubs that focuses on the contested social, cultural and legal context in which striptease occurs rather than the negotiations that occur within clubs. As Frank argues: New research could shed light on the opposition strip clubs face in their communities…these wars are waged, in courtrooms and on the bodies of the dancers, around the meanings of phrases like ‘obscenity’, ‘community standards’, 4 ‘lewd behavior’, ‘intent to provide sexual gratification’ and ‘secondary effects’. How are these phrases interpreted and deployed, by whom, and to what effects? (Frank, 2005, 511) In this paper, I explore such questions, and the wider conflicts that surround the naked body, by considering ongoing debates about how lap-dancing venues should be regulated in the UK. As will be outlined, recent years have witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of adult entertainment venues, the opening of each provoking a wave (or, at the very least, a ripple) of complaints from local residents, businesses, religious groups and campaigners arguing against lap dancing from a radical feminist perspective. Collectively, such complaints have coalesced in a national campaign arguing for the reclassification of these venues as sexual encounter establishments, contending that they deserve to be treated fundamentally differently to those venues where there is no sexually provocative or naked dance. Given such arguments now appear to hold sway, with licensing reform imminent, this paper scrutinises the assumptions which inform campaigns of opposition, suggesting that the state’s adoption of these principles pushes licensing into a position where it is manifestly concerned with the form and content of public entertainment – contrary to repeated claims that licensing should not interfere in civil liberties or private morality. Striptopia UK? Given the current debates that circulate around striptease entertainment, and the ways that such debates circumscribe 5 notions of appropriate femininity and masculinity, one might expect a substantial body of research to have focused on this sector. Yet, despite emerging ethnographic research on the way that dancers engage with clientele within strip clubs (e.g. Egan 2003; 2005; Liepe-Levinson, 2003; Pasko, 2002; Spivey, 2005; Trautner, 2002), there are few studies documenting the social and cultural histories of striptease, the majority of these being based on North American traditions of vaudeville and burlesque (Allen, 1999; Bruckert and Dufresne, 2002; Friedmann, 2000; Toepfer, 1996). However, there remains little equivalent research in the context of the UK, and the history of striptease in the UK remains largely unwritten. Were it to be written, various key sites of adult entertainment would feature prominently – not least London’s Windmill theatre, which from the 1930s pioneered a particularly English burlesque in which naked female bodies were artfully-presented as living statuary (Walkowitz, 2002). Later, Soho-based clubs, including Raymond’s Revuebar, began to push at the boundaries of respectability by offering more overtly sexualised displays of eroticism, and, after the 1968 repeal of the Lord Chamberlain’s ban on striptease, showcased ‘fully nude’ dancing (Mort, 2007). Less upmarket forms of stripping also began to emerge in the East End, where lunchtime and evening shows became regular features at some public houses (Clifton et al, 2001). Similar ‘girlie shows’ and ‘strip pubs’ were also to be found in the inner cities of larger towns and cities, a geographic pattern only challenged in 1995 when the Canadian chain For Your Eyes Only opened a ‘gentleman’s club’ in outer London (Park Royal). As well as challenging the tradition location of adult entertainment, this venue provided ‘intimate’ forms of interaction between (female) dancers and (male) clientele where dancers 6 ‘straddled’ the seated customer. The ‘US style’ lap dance had arrived in the UK. Subsequent to the opening of For Your Eyes Only, other foreign- owned chains - Déjà vu (trading as Hustler) and Spearmint Rhino – made major inroads into the British market. As new venues offering lap and pole dance began to open in most British cities, existing striptease venues (e.g. Stringfellow’s Angels of Paradise, London) began to adopt similar strategies, with striptease ‘shows’ being supplanted by lap dancing and the provision of executive areas or booths where customers could enjoy ‘private dances’. Though some predicted this would be a short-lived fad, few British towns or cities now lack such dedicated sex entertainment venues (one online guide suggests there are over 350 clubs and pubs offering striptease). Moreover, current levels of spending on sexual services, and the omnipresence of exotic dancing, stripping, and strip-club culture